Their rally may not be as large as the ones seen during 2011's Occupy Wall Street movement, but these protesters are every bit as serious about equality -- and they plan to stick it out until May 15 when the regulator is expected to announce new formal rules that could give more control over the internet to large corporations.

"We don't have armies of paid lobbyists at our disposal but we can not let the freedom of the internet be hijacked by giant monopolies," Evan Greer of Fight For The Future, the group behind the protest, said to The Guardian. "The internet is as necessary to our society as shelter and water, people should have equal access to it."

Occupiers spent the night at the @FCC to #SaveTheInternet! Show them some love w/a RT. @fightfortheftr @PopResistance http://t.co/Y13qWlL6whOccupy Wall Street

#NetNeutrality protest at the FCC. Advocates will picket (#OCCUPY) until May 15th. #SaveTheInternet #anonymous #waveofaction #OccupyTheFCC¤ProletarianDissent¤

On my way to the #SaveTheInternet camp outside the @FCC! Check back later for my full report on the #NetNeutrality battle. @fightfortheftrAlice Ollstein

Headed down to @FCC to try and convince them to #SaveTheInternet @fightfortheftrTheodore Seabright

Support The People's Firewall #FCCvsNetFreedom #WaveOfAction to #SaveTheInternet!!Tom Morello

RIGHT NOW #NetNeutrality protest at the FCC. Advocates will picket until May 15th @DCMediaGroup #SaveTheInternet http://t.co/IhrmX4Qf48john zangas

FFTF is one of 86 organizations asking the FCC to protect net neutrality by solidifying rules that would prevent a two-tiered internet system.

It is their hope that the FCC will reclassify cable providers and ISPs as "telecommunications services" so that it can impose net neutrality rules upon them.

"Right now there is no one protecting Internet users from ISPs that block or discriminate against online content," reads a letter written by the coalition of organizations. "Companies like AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Verizon will be able to block or slow down any website, application or service they like. And they'll be able to create tiered pricing structures with fast lanes for content providers and speakers who can afford the tolls -- and slow lanes for everyone else."

More than one million people have signed various petitions in support of the letter, according to people-powered politics site Avaaz. And as decision day gets closer, an increasing amount of attention is being paid to the issue by citizens and media alike.

The net neutrality battle for equal access vs. pay-for-premium internetA debate is raging around the world about how all that internet content streaming into billions of households should be managed. "Net neutrality," the dry and antiseptic term bandied about in this debate, refers to the belief that internet service providers must treat all this traffic equally.

The activists camped outside FCC headquarters are far from the only citizens trying to get the commission's attention right now.

Reddit co-founder and internet activist Alexis Ohanian is running a crowdfunding campaign to erect a pro-net neutrality billboard close to the FCC's offices.

"Let's defend the rights of the open internet and tell the FCC that it's not okay for them to side with an oligopoly of internet providers instead of the American people," he wrote on the campaign's page. "The open internet is a fundamental utility to our nation's economy and society -- let's keep it that way."

Save Net Neutrality: Billboard in FCC's BackyardThe Internet as we know it is under attack, though most of us don't know it. On May 15, the FCC plans to kill the idea of net neutrality and replace it with a 'cable-ized' version that costs more for consumers, en...

Advocacy group Free Press will also be hosting a protest at the FCC's headquarters on May 15 and has encouraged attendees to bring "pots, pans or whatever else you can bang on so the FCC hears our message loud and clear."

Are you going to be in the D.C. area on May 15th? Join the Rally to #SaveTheInternet: http://t.co/UbZq9YbwAWFree Press

In other parts of the U.S., petitioners are calling on President Barack Obama to protect net neutrality -- something he vowed adamantly to do during a 2007 MTV broadcast, but has said little about in the past few months as the issue comes to a head in Washington.

A group of protesters made their opinions known to the president as his motorcade passed them in Los Angeles Wednesday evening.

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